Fun & Not So Fun
Fun: Getting to shoot handguns for the first time. I've grown up shooting rifles my whole life, but had never shot a hand gun before. So when visiting my family this past weekend, my brother, a bunch of friends and I went to a small local indoor shooting range, where they regularly go for their range shooting practice needs. I started out with the lighter guns and worked my way up. I did pretty well considering it was my first time, and all of my archery and other gun training paid off. I managed to keep a fairly good grouping around the center, with the occasional bullseye. It is a lot different to control your body when holding something out in front of you vs. a bow or a rifle. Overall it was a ton of fun and I'll definitely be pestering my brother to go back the next time I visit home. :)
Fun with a bit of creepy on the side: Going to a gun show. My dad is a huge hunting/fishing guy and also loves to collect older rifles/shotguns/etc. He had been given a few guns from my uncle that he didn't want and had a few others he was ready to pass along, so on Saturday morning we went to a gun show. My dad is a pretty quiet and humble guy, and would have been more than happy to sell the guns for waaay under price. However, my dad's friend is the Ultimate Sales Guy, and quickly became our main source of entertainment of the morning as we wandered about trying to catch the interest of a potential buyer. It was phenomenal watching my dad's friend be able to just catch the glance of someone and instantly recognize if they were interested, and more importantly, how much they were willing to pay. He could read how tempted they were as if it were drawn in permanent marker on their forehead. Watching him deal and negotiate was an art all in itself :) Needless to say, an hour later we had sold all 4 rifles we had arrived with, and come away with three times the amount of money my dad had even dreamed to get. After that we spent a little time looking for an old-fashioned non-working rustic shotgun for my dad to hang on the wall with his first turkey tail down in his work room, before making our way home.
While hanging out with my dad and his friend was a ton of fun, the gun show itself was a bit creepy. I'm not really comfortable in any 'extreme' political environment, no matter which way it leans, and this was definitely at the far end of a spectrum. About 85% of the people there were white men over 55-60 with a distinctive "conservative" attitude. The fact that I lived in The Island of Madison was kept hush in a conversation if it came up. There was a good half hour talk over the squeaky P.A. system about all the legislation going through or being stopped that's trying to 'take our guns away' or 'stop 'em from stealin' our guns.' One booth had a large rebel flag hanging behind it. I understand that they specialized in historical war weapons, and it was hanging next to a large Japanese flag, however it still threw me a little bit as I'd just hope people be a bit more culturally sensitive. Of course there is the point that there weren't any black or asian people there and I spotted maybe 5 latino, so there was the impression that 'culturally sensitive' had a whole different meaning. Walking around with my dad, older men kindly and proudly looked at us with the assumption that I was a Good Obedient Daughter, who'd been "raised right", and would continue the "tradition." Encouraging this belief made for an even better sale. We didn't mention that I lived in Madison, or voted for Obama in the primaries ;) While there were a handful of wives and kids, there was barely anyone under 30, many over 70, and taking it all in, I very much got the impression that I was watching a dying breed. While apart of me firmly believes in appreciating having extreme points be expressed to help others maintain perspective, another part of me sighed with relief as I can't remember ever hearing so many bigoted comments and 'jokes' in such a short time span. It was quite an "interesting" experience.
.. and finally..
The Not So Fun: 104F fever. Not Fun. Monday I started coming down with the nasty plague cough and by morning it was accompanied by a lovely 101 fever. Since my boss was home sick and my undergrad really needed help getting through her experiments that day, I drugged up, felt ok, and went to work. Around noon, I was back to Not Ok, and went home where my fever started it's persistent uphill adventure :P I am unfortunately freshly updated on all my non-thermometer temperature readings as 100 is icky, 101 is achey, 102 is painful, 103 is miserable, and 104 was complete misery accompanied by hazy halos around everything and being able to 'warm up' (as fevers make me feel ice cold) with my own body heat reflecting back at me under my yummy heavy flannel quilt. Nick was still at work, so my 104 logic was able to convince me that I was perfectly fine just taking a bunch of ibiprofin, since picking up the phone and dialing sounded really hard, I couldn't drive at this point, and I made a deal with myself that I would have to go to urgent care if it got any higher. Since it meant I didn't really have to move off the couch, I thought it was a splendid idea. Thankfully my fevered logic did ok, and two hours later I was down a bit. I downed more drugs and by the time Nick got home later that night my fever had broken, which was made obvious by the appearance that I had just walked into the shower and laid back down without toweling off in-between. :P Yesterday my fever stayed fairly reasonable throughout the day and broke again last night. Thankfully this morning I'm back to no fever and just the icky aches and cough. Despite all of that I'm actually pretty cheery at work today as i don't think I could handle another day on that couch. Having only 5 tv channels has it's limits. ;)
Fun with a bit of creepy on the side: Going to a gun show. My dad is a huge hunting/fishing guy and also loves to collect older rifles/shotguns/etc. He had been given a few guns from my uncle that he didn't want and had a few others he was ready to pass along, so on Saturday morning we went to a gun show. My dad is a pretty quiet and humble guy, and would have been more than happy to sell the guns for waaay under price. However, my dad's friend is the Ultimate Sales Guy, and quickly became our main source of entertainment of the morning as we wandered about trying to catch the interest of a potential buyer. It was phenomenal watching my dad's friend be able to just catch the glance of someone and instantly recognize if they were interested, and more importantly, how much they were willing to pay. He could read how tempted they were as if it were drawn in permanent marker on their forehead. Watching him deal and negotiate was an art all in itself :) Needless to say, an hour later we had sold all 4 rifles we had arrived with, and come away with three times the amount of money my dad had even dreamed to get. After that we spent a little time looking for an old-fashioned non-working rustic shotgun for my dad to hang on the wall with his first turkey tail down in his work room, before making our way home.
While hanging out with my dad and his friend was a ton of fun, the gun show itself was a bit creepy. I'm not really comfortable in any 'extreme' political environment, no matter which way it leans, and this was definitely at the far end of a spectrum. About 85% of the people there were white men over 55-60 with a distinctive "conservative" attitude. The fact that I lived in The Island of Madison was kept hush in a conversation if it came up. There was a good half hour talk over the squeaky P.A. system about all the legislation going through or being stopped that's trying to 'take our guns away' or 'stop 'em from stealin' our guns.' One booth had a large rebel flag hanging behind it. I understand that they specialized in historical war weapons, and it was hanging next to a large Japanese flag, however it still threw me a little bit as I'd just hope people be a bit more culturally sensitive. Of course there is the point that there weren't any black or asian people there and I spotted maybe 5 latino, so there was the impression that 'culturally sensitive' had a whole different meaning. Walking around with my dad, older men kindly and proudly looked at us with the assumption that I was a Good Obedient Daughter, who'd been "raised right", and would continue the "tradition." Encouraging this belief made for an even better sale. We didn't mention that I lived in Madison, or voted for Obama in the primaries ;) While there were a handful of wives and kids, there was barely anyone under 30, many over 70, and taking it all in, I very much got the impression that I was watching a dying breed. While apart of me firmly believes in appreciating having extreme points be expressed to help others maintain perspective, another part of me sighed with relief as I can't remember ever hearing so many bigoted comments and 'jokes' in such a short time span. It was quite an "interesting" experience.
.. and finally..
The Not So Fun: 104F fever. Not Fun. Monday I started coming down with the nasty plague cough and by morning it was accompanied by a lovely 101 fever. Since my boss was home sick and my undergrad really needed help getting through her experiments that day, I drugged up, felt ok, and went to work. Around noon, I was back to Not Ok, and went home where my fever started it's persistent uphill adventure :P I am unfortunately freshly updated on all my non-thermometer temperature readings as 100 is icky, 101 is achey, 102 is painful, 103 is miserable, and 104 was complete misery accompanied by hazy halos around everything and being able to 'warm up' (as fevers make me feel ice cold) with my own body heat reflecting back at me under my yummy heavy flannel quilt. Nick was still at work, so my 104 logic was able to convince me that I was perfectly fine just taking a bunch of ibiprofin, since picking up the phone and dialing sounded really hard, I couldn't drive at this point, and I made a deal with myself that I would have to go to urgent care if it got any higher. Since it meant I didn't really have to move off the couch, I thought it was a splendid idea. Thankfully my fevered logic did ok, and two hours later I was down a bit. I downed more drugs and by the time Nick got home later that night my fever had broken, which was made obvious by the appearance that I had just walked into the shower and laid back down without toweling off in-between. :P Yesterday my fever stayed fairly reasonable throughout the day and broke again last night. Thankfully this morning I'm back to no fever and just the icky aches and cough. Despite all of that I'm actually pretty cheery at work today as i don't think I could handle another day on that couch. Having only 5 tv channels has it's limits. ;)